The story I decided to blog about was in the Education section of the New York Times, the reason I chose this was because I want to be a teacher once I graduate and I find it interesting what other school districts are doing around the nation. In the story I found thousands of school districts all around the United States over the last decade after a government financed survey. I would say this is very bad news because as the generation below us needs to be eloquent in many different languages to conduct business around the world and to use diplomacy. In this article it says that big schools in the United States are bringing Chinese people to teach the school children the Chinese language. Although some schools are paying for the teachers themselves, hundreds others are being sent by the Chinese government who is paying their salary. A school in Ohio got a "free" Chinese teacher, the teacher is not free as the Chinese government is paying his compensation and the school district is paying the rest. While I was a senior in high school I was a teacher's assistant to the kindergarten in my district and we learned Spanish together because the teacher thought it would be a good language to start on. When I learned that over 1,000 teachers are teaching Chinese all around the United States it alarmed me, the article also states that Advanced Placement Chinese is well on its way to passing AP German. I was in a small North Dakota high school and the only options we had were German, and Spanish. Experts say that people are starting to recognize that China is a country to be reckoned with and learning the language will help the next generation. http://www.%20nytimes.com/2010/01/21/education/21chinese.html?em. I agree with teaching foreign languages in schools and I think that teaching other languages other then the regulars, German, Spanish, French, or Russian will be very beneficial to the future generation. In an earlier article about the same thing, it followed one school district's decision to start with it in prekindergarten and end with it as a high school senior. It also states the trouble school districts have in starting a Mandarin Chinese lesson, as there are not many people who can teach the language, but the great thing about it is that the students that learn Mandarin Chinese early are sticking with it and want to make it a career choice. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/01/nyregion/nyregionspecial2/01chinesewe.html?_r=1&fta=y
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I think it is a good idea to teach our children a different language but I think that it should not be required to be taken. If my oldest daughter had to take it then she would be trying at it forever--she has a learning disability. Now kids like her would not benefit with this requirement due to they take much longer to learn the simplest of assignments, also the teachers must go slower for ones like her.
ReplyDeleteI think that it is a very good thing that we are teaching children different languages. I think that the United States is changing in the sense of having so many immigrants and in order to effectively communicate with them we need to know their language also. I think the language that they teach should depend on where you live. For example, I think it would be very beneficial to teach Spanish to children in Arizona with the growing number of Spanish speaking people moving in there. I also think that starting to learn at an earlier age would make it easier for the children since that is when their minds are like sponges.
ReplyDeleteI agree that school districts should be offering many different languages. I also grew up in a small North Dakotan school that offered Spanish face to face, and German that had to be taken over the ITV. I took Spanish for two years in high school and was unable to further my Spanish because the school didn't offer any additional educating. I think it is very important to understand some of the most used languages in the world, especially when the United States has not national language.
ReplyDeleteI agree with this blog, because I think schools should have a variety of lauguages. This way they can learn more lauguages and interact with more people than just the ones that speak their own lauguage. In my high school career I took four french courses and I found out most colleges don't offer french courses, so I was sort of bummed out about that. Since I know somewhat French I can take what I know and succeed in the future with my second lauguage and interact with other people who speak french.
ReplyDeleteI agree with this blog. If they do teach foreign languages they should do it at a very young age. As they get so old they should have a choice to take foreign languages if they want to. In my high school we could take Spanish, German, and French. All of those were over ITV. That way one teacher could teach many students at different schools at once. Then we wouldn't need as many teachers. With the Chinese government paying the salary for the Chinese teachers it wouldn't cost the American government that much and we get outside money coming into America.
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